a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for removing or emptying bilge water from a vessel, especially a small vessel such as a boat, and, more particularly, to an apparatus which utilizes rolling and/or pitching movement of the boat to pump out bilge water from the boat without the aid of a motor or engine.
b. Prior Art
Various pipe lines are installed in a vessel. For example, a bilge ballast piping comprises a pipe system for supplying or discharging ballast water into or from a double-bottomed ballast water tank or a bow or stern water tank and a pipe system for drawing off bilge water which has been accumulated in a bilge due to seepage or leakage from various portions of the vessel or sweating of cargo in a hold. These pipe systems are branched from a valve casing connected to a bilge pump or ballast pump in an engine room and are led to various compartments.
These pumps are in general driven by power supplied from an electric generator mounted on the vessel. These pumps, however, may possibly be inoperative due to possible malfunction of the electric generator in case of emergency. Thus, the pumps may often become useless when water discharge is most needed. Besides, small vessels such as small fishing boats, yachts, cruisers sometimes do not have water discharging equipment. In these cases, if leakage occurs, a serious accident may occur as human effort is not sufficient to discharge water.